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The Essence of Software Engineering: Book Review and Interview with Ivar Jacobson

The essence of software engineering introduces the Software Engineering Method and Theory (SEMAT) initiative, and describes how it can be used in software development to understand and improve the way of working. It uses agile principles to support self-organizing teams in adopting agile and lean development practices. An interview with Ivar Jacobson, one of the authors and leaders of SEMAT.

Ben Linders
on Jul 23, 2013
The 4 Questions of a Retrospective and Why They Work

A Retrospective is a valuable way to improve how your team works together by reflecting on what has come before and using what you have learned to move ahead together. The authors present a structure with four simple questions to help you get started with using retrospectives in your team environment.

Collin Lyons Laura M. Waite
on Jul 08, 2013
Dialogue Sheets Revisited

Last year Allan Kelly wrote an InfoQ article about a tool for retrospectives - Dialogue Sheets. A year and over 2000 downloads later he looks at how they are being used and ways they have been adapted in the wild.

Allan Kelly
on Apr 22, 2013
DevOps @ Nokia Entertainment

DevOps@Nokia Entertainment is the first article of the “DevOps War Stories” series. Each month we hear what DevOps brings to a different organisation, we learn what worked and what didn’t, and chart the challenges faced during adoption.

John Clapham
on Jan 31, 2013
Interview and Book Review: Essential Scrum

Essential Scrum by Kenny Rubin is a book about getting more out of Scrum. It’s an introduction to Scrum and its values, principles and practices, and a source of inspiration on how to apply it.

Ben Linders
on Dec 04, 2012
Agile Performance Reviews

Why go an entire year before receiving feedback? Nothing else in the Agile world waits a year, why would feedback? Struggling to make feedback objective? Perhaps objectivity is the wrong goal perhaps reviews should be subjective. Ryan Hagan offers his approach to doing performance reviews with an Agile Team.

Ryan Hagan
on Nov 09, 2012
Interview and Book Review : The Retrospective Handbook

Patrick Kua has recently published The Retrospective Handbook which provides practical advice on how to make retrospectives much more effective. In this book Patrick draws upon his 8 years of valuable experience with retrospectives in real agile teams.

Anand Vishwanath
on Sep 17, 2012
The Agile Project Manager — Voilà: The Great Reveal

Certified Scrum Master training tells us we must conduct Reviews (aka Demo's) at the end of every Sprint. Rarely do we get guidance on how to have a great Sprint Review. Bob Galen has experienced the bad "Demos" that were only Powerpoint and helped coach them to the level where stakeholders clamoured to attend.

Robert Galen
on Jun 11, 2012
Dialogue Sheets: A new tool for retrospectives

Dialogue sheets allow teams to hold facilitator-less retrospectives. They promote self-organization and encourage everyone to speak in the exercise. This results in great levels of participation in and higher energy levels in teams. The sheet itself is A1 in size, 8 times larger than a regular sheet, pre printed with instructions and questions to motivation discussion.

Allan Kelly
on Jan 03, 2012
The Retrospective Practice as a Vehicle for Leading Conceptual Change

This paper tells how we coached the adaption process of agile software development in a specific company, with a focus on one mechanism – one-hour retrospectives – we employ to guide team members realize the needed change and let them lead it. From our perspective, the stage in which team members start facilitating the retrospective sessions by themselves is a landmark of success.

Yael Dubinsky Orit Hazzan
on Jun 14, 2011
Book Excerpt: Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins

Very little in our education or experience properly prepares a ScrumMaster or project manager for the role of agile coach. This leaves most wondering, "What is my role in a self-organized team? How do I help the team yet stay hands-off?" This chapter, excerpted from the book Coaching Agile Teams, shows you how to activate the journey toward high performance in both provocative and practical ways.

Lyssa Adkins
on Jun 15, 2010
An Introduction to Lean Thinking for Software

For Agile developers only familiar with Scrum or XP, it may be unclear how Lean relates to what they do. This article introduces Lean Thinking and how it enhances software development. Ning Lu of ThoughtWorks China identified the biggest obstacle to Lean or Agile as the mind-set developed during the period of large-scale manufacturing.

Jacky Li
on Jun 23, 2008

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